Mechanical Brides

[laundromat]

Way back in 1992,I was aproached by a woman named Ellen Lupton who was a curator at New York's Cooper Hewitt Museum of Design.She was getting together objects for a neat show there and wanted to get as many major and small appliances as she could to put it all together. Ellen had read about my fascination as well as the "museum" I had in B'more in the New York Times and People Magazine. When she arived,we had all weekend to go searching. I took her around and showed her all I had then took her to John LeFever's where there were even more appliances and Tom Stiyer also made a few contributions to show off. Well,there was a book written by Ellen about the show and what it was all about.It's illustrated and talks about juxtaposing different images to sell the products and how women had their own image to fullfill regarding the many tasks that appliances were made for to help them overcome the drudgery of being the housekeeper. I found it on line and bought it. I myself had gone to see the show and was given my own copy of the same book but lost it in a major fire that distroyed the house and everything I had in it.My cat,kenmore, had jumped onto the GE Versatronic double oven range I had in pink and pressed the front left burner control button setting the range on fire and destroying the entire house.I had gone to the bank to make a deposit and came home to see the house in ruins as the firemen were giving 4 of my cats oxygen.So,I was glad to see the book available and got it today.Anyone here interested in the history of appliance advertisement as well as the design and artists who developed them should get a copy of it.Grat illustrations and photos of some real nice products.Aloha!

 

[tomturbomatic]

That was the show where Robert got threatened by a guard when he leaned forward and tried to lift the lid of John's 1962 Frigidaire Custom Imperial washer.

 

[laundromat]

Him too??? OMG!!

The same thing happened when I went to open the Laundromat to show the Weigh to Save door!!!And,it was my machine!!

 

[hooverwheelaway]

That was the show where Robert got threatened by a guard...

Hahahahahaha!

 

[Unimatic1140]

Memories of summer 1992

I sure did, I so badly wanted to see the inside of that turquoise WCI-60. This was 1992, back then the last time I had seen a solid basket Frigidaire was 1985 and I hadn't seen the inside of a 3-ring agitator washer since 1971. Needless to say it was just killing me standing there and only being able to see the outside of the machines. There were signs everywhere saying "do not touch the machines", but I couldn't help my little self, lol.

 

[foraloysius]

So, what is the title of the book?

 

[maytagbear]

Louis-

same as the exhibition, "Mechanical Brides."

I had lost sight of Chuck after his appearance in People, but I knew, just knew that "the appliance guy in People" would be somehow involved in this exhibition.

Lawrence/Maytagbear

 

[tomturbomatic]

Speaking of Chuck's Baltimore museum, a father brought his young son to see those machines in Chuck's apartment. If that was the early 90s and the boy was in kindergarten or elementary school, he should have found us by now. Is anyone here that boy? It's hard to imagine the isolation of a world without an Internet, but the boy should be here by now. Someone that interested at that age, as most all of us were, certainly belongs here. I hope he is alive and well.

Robert, I would have been sending candy and flowers to Lupton's office and pleading with her to contact John so that you could have had an inside the washer experience with us years before it happened.

 

[bendixbubba]

link to amazon

http://books.google.ca/books?id=XyI...=Mechanical Brides&pg=PA8#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

[laundromat]

Hey Tom!,

I'm not sure if it was Baltimore but in Hollywood,Florida there actualy was a young boy who I met in Incredible Universe,where I worked selling tons of major appliances,sometimes by the crate to folks who would export them to Bermuda and Mexico.His name has skipped my mind but,I think it began with a G---can I buy a Vowel??? LOL. His family was wonderfull and came again to see me when I'd left Hollywood and moved to orlando where I managed a Direct Maytag Store. I had gotten numerous toy washers off ebay and,when they came to visit me on his birthday,I had hidden 8 of them inside different appliances at my store and had him search and sease them.I have tried dozens of times to reach them but with no success. He is probably around twenty years old now.His mothe and I talked for hours a few times about his high I.Q and she follwed through on finding a special school for exceptional children in Florida.His uncle,whom I met at his birthday party, was a real estate agent who would buy foreclosier homes and flip them like a cook at IHOP.Some of them were so cheap and so beautiful that I had asked him to call us (Orma and me)if he found a nice place in Orlando. that was when we moved in to Longwood and stayed there for two years in a beautiful ranch house that had 4 bedrooms,3 baths,a screaned in pool,3 car garage,enclosed back patiio that had a/c, and a hot tub that seated 5.We would have stayed there longer had the water main not burst. The original owner had sold tghe property and the new owners were always iin Chili and wouldn't return any calls.